


Counting Reindeer

by samanthalo



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2519018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samanthalo/pseuds/samanthalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, after bad dreams, we just need to be with someone who understands us.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Reindeer

There is a ball tonight and the great hall is alive with color and music and people, so many people. Anna finds she can only stand and watch in awe as hundreds of finely dressed guests fold in and around each other. She's never seen so many people in one place, let alone in their castle. When did so many make their way through the gates? She thinks of Elsa's coronation and the exuberant crowd that helped celebrate the beginning of her reign. There were maybe twice, no, three times as many people now, pressing up against the walls and the columns, around the tables of pastries and hor d'ouevres and glistening glasses of golden champagne. And in the middle of it all, a rollicking dance floor, men and women lost in motion, blurs of skirts and silk sashes. Anna beams as easy, rolling laughter reaches her ears. A beautiful woman, all smiles beneath a layer of lovely makeup, pulls her into the room.

“Come, dance! Dance!” She urges, spinning Anna into the center of the mass of bodies. She is instantly taken up by a handsome young man with ebony hair and gentle hands and before she even realizes it, they're twirling around with the rest of the group. He leads her expertly between other couples, swerving like vines up a trellis.

“You're so beautiful, so deserving of such a gala.” He whispers and Anna opens her mouth to respond, confusion butting in to battle with her excitement, when suddenly she is thrust into another man's open arms. They are off in the opposite direction before she can even think to protest. Her previous dance partner melts back into the fray and she is now locked into a new series of steps.

“Its an honor to dance with you tonight.” The man's voice is honey-smooth, almost too pleasing to the ear. She feels her confusion begin to morph into something less-so.

“But I-” He lifts her arm and she pivots in time on her heel only to be passed off once more. The men's faces are blank copies of each other, different shades and hues, but all the same. The heavy feeling of panic settles into her gut as she becomes aware the whole room is now fixated on her, just her.

“Elsa! Kris-” She begins, falters when he steps in seamlessly, cruel wolf's grin splitting his face neatly into two.

“Oh hello there Anna. Did you call for someone, Princess?” Her lips smack of curses and insults, but they don't move and she's helpless in his arms. The dance moves faster, the music rising to a crescendo, and all Anna can do is shut her eyes against the sight of him, of his oil-slick whispers, how every time she is passed to another set of arms, it's somehow always his. No escape, no running, no Elsa, no Kristoff, just her and him and a room full of strangers and the ever-creeping chill that begins to overtake her, spreading upwards along her limbs from her fingers and her toes She's freezing to death right before him, but Hans continues to smile, continues to twirl her around until it's clear he's just dragging her stone-cold feet along the parquet floor -

-*-

She gasped for breath as she bolted upwards from her pillows, gulping as if bursting forth from a great depth of water, arms flailing and heart pounding, drenched in cold sweat. Anna ran a shaking hand over her forehead. The soaked fringes of her bangs stuck fast, falling slowly as she bent forward to curl herself around the sharp knobs of her knees. The further she retreated from the dream, the easier it was to find her breath. It was just a dream, she tried to convince herself. Just a dream and not a painful memory. The quilt draped over her was warm and soft. The mattress beneath her was soft and comforting. Greedily, she reached for any other sensory perception she could that told her that she was still breathing, that she was still.

The perspiration on her brows and cheeks was growing rather uncomfortable. She swiped a shaky hand just beneath her eyes, grimacing at the feeling of the moisture there. Her limbs tingled with the lost feeling of unending movement and his face, handsome and dark all at the same time, flashed right before her eyes. That smirk, knowing that he had her right where he wanted her. And she was helpless against it. Anna shuddered violently and swept the covers back quickly, shaking legs finding the thick carpet of her room as she stumbled towards her private toilet.

The door was only partially shut. She bounced into it, the brass knob hitting the wall hard, and glanced off into the corner occupied by an ivory porcelain toilet. She buckled before it and fumbled with the lid. Her sweaty palms slipped on the smooth wooden surface, every second making it more imperative she get it open. The lid made a loud ringing sound as it knocked into the tank, but Anna barely heard it as she tightly cupped the edges and began to heave. The sounds of her retching tamped out the still reverberating echo in the empty expanse until finally the spasms ceased and she was left gasping and trembling. Yellow bile dangled in thin, bitter ropes from her lips. She clumsily spat them off. There was a terrible taste in her mouth, an awful smell from the toilet. She spat a few more times before straightening and feeling her way in the darkness to the wash basin.

She'd often thought about death in the long, quiet minutes after her parents' loss at sea. She wondered aloud what being a spirit felt like, if they were with her in the empty space of their bedroom, or swimming in the ocean, swirling around the mast of their boat like silver-bellied fish. The thought kept her awake at night. It peppered her activities throughout the day. Sometimes, when languishing in her mother's dressing room, she'd close her eyes and reach her hands out to her absent presence. She tried to will her unsteady fingers to be touched. A sign. What she expected, she couldn't be sure. The feeling of fingers clasping around her own? A deep cloud of warmth, sunshine concentrated in and around her skin? Her mother, glowing with the light of heaven smiling down at her, a stained-glass apparition?

And then came the moment when she herself had died, in such a totally unexpected way. Even now, crouched under the faucet as she continuously tried to rinse the taste of sick from her mouth, Anna felt the fatal transformation. The delicate trail of ice that shot out from her chest was mercifully quick, but not quick enough to stop her from recognizing her vocal chords freezing, her vision turning blue and then white and then fading to an all-encompassing black. A black that did not dissipate. A black without any color. 

She can tell the difference between that black and the blackness enveloping her in the bathroom, but the similarity unnerved her. The thought of going back to bed doesn't sit well with her rollicking gut or her racing pulse. Instead, she felt her way back into the room, Her hands ghosted over a bed post and the plush velvet robe hung there. She passed by, continuing along the edge of the mattress to her bed side table. There was a small stub of candle waiting there. She fumbled for a moment until she found it and the match box beneath.The small matchsticks felt too small between her clumsy fingers. It was difficult to grasp them and she pressed too hard when striking them and they splintered. Each little flame that burst to life only to flicker and die in a thin plume of smoke ignited old embers of bad dreams long since gone. Anna fumbled a few more times before somehow, she finally kept a spark until it caught onto the wick. She cupped the candle and its tray as close to her breast as possible and carried it with her out into the hall.

The grandfather clock in the gallery chimed low and heavy in the gloam. Anna paused to listen to each toll, counting until she knew the hour. It was late. Or rather, it was early. She bit her lip while reconsidering her path, eyeing the darkened hallway leading down to the spacious guest suites and spare bedrooms with trepidation. Kristoff would be getting up in only an hour or so to get ready to head out for the morning's work. She couldn't wake him now; He'd never get back to sleep and he'd be so tired going up the mountain. Thoughts of deadly but preventable accidents made her balk and she took a little step backward despite herself.

She turned and looked down the opposite end of the hallway, just making out Elsa's large white door. Her body began to lean towards the imposing sight, but Anna stopped, hesitation in more than just her movements. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach was quickly returning the longer she sat and waited. She needed to do something, but was suddenly and pitifully at a loss to what. Like Kristoff, Elsa would be awake in only a few short hours and Anna knew she had just as busy a day. She didn't want to bother either of them with her nightmares, her weakness, yet she needed someone -

An idea popped into her head and she bit her lip at the thought. It was a strange time for a princess to be cavorting in nothing but her night gown. Anna raced back into her room to grab her robe and slippers. She set the candle back on the nightstand, careful not to create an errant breeze which might extinguish her guiding light, and haphazardly shrugged each garment on. As an afterthought, she ripped the top quilt from her bed, wadding it up into an uneven lump beneath her arm. There was still a corner trailing along behind her as she took up her candle and quickly, but cautiously, made her way down the hallway past her sister's door to the grand, winding staircase.

-*-

When Kristoff awoke that morning, he was so ridiculously sore that it took him a full ten minutes just to drum up the energy to roll over beneath the goose-down comforter. He groaned into the crook of his elbow as the knotted muscles in his shoulders and neck protested. Harvesting was always difficult at the beginning of the season, when winter could simply not allow spring to take hold, but he couldn't quite remember when it had been this difficult. Each block seemed to repel his ice axe and the blocks he did manage to cleave were dense, solid monsters. It took everything within in him to haul them up and into his sled. By the time he'd returned the night before, he had eyes only for the bed he was now sunken into and a blissful respite. 

He stumbled to his feet, wincing at the heavy feeling in his legs, and shuffled to the small bathroom just behind his bureau. The mirrored cabinet above the basin was fully stocked with a wide variety of ointments and salves, courtesy his hosts, including creamy balm for cracked, dry skin and a clear bottle of oil that smelled of peppermint and could soak into those sore muscles. He smoothed a fair amount around his neck, shoulders and upper arms, sighing just a bit at the tingling sensation crawling across his skin and that irresistable scent. He remembered Anna and Elsa using something similar on their hands, sharing a small little vial between themselves in the study. It smelled the same. Without even thinking, Kristoff lifted his fingers and inhaled the sharp, fresh scent, letting his eyes drift close at the thought of Anna's own hands running through his hair, over his jaw, working out knots he didn't even know were there at the base of his neck.

Kristoff's eyes snapped open and he came back to the present at the sight of his own reflection in the mirrored cabinet, looking positively content. He flushed to the roots of his hair. What a strange turn of events, he thought with a quirk of his lips. Strange, but not unwelcome, and he swiped at his smirk. 

“Like a contented housecat.” He murmured, before making up his mind to stop being smitten and just get dressed.

His clothes were laid out the night before on the top of the empty bureau, and he grabbed for his sweater and pants. They were still damp. He frowned a bit at the smell of the wool. It was his mistake for not letting them dry in front of the fire. He was growing lazy from his time in the castle. Shaking his head, he shrugged on the clothes anyway, promising himself that he'd send them to laundress when he got back and take a bath before joining the girls for dinner, lest Anna get a whiff of what twice-soaked wool smelled like.

She hung out in the back of his mind throughout the rest of his routine. As he pulled materials from the cedar chest beside the bureau, as he packed his satchel, put on his socks and boots. He stopped by her room on his way down to the stables, but didn't knock or even really breathe. It was still dark, too early for princesses to be awake. Compelled by some sort of strange sense of decorum, Kristoff removed his hat and rested his bare forehead against the wood of her door.

“See you tonight, Anna.” He whispered, lingering for just a moment more.

The ever-present stable boys were already milling about the stable when Kristoff pushed his way through the heavy wooden doors, readying pitchforks and wooden wheelbarrows for the morning's mucking. They parted to make paths for him as he headed down the center aisle towards the spacious stall in the back corner which had become Sven's new abode. A few of them nodded, one even waved, but the majority simply ignored him and went about their work. Kristoff didn't mind. He responded in kind, fighting the urge to yawn as he passed by empty and occupied stalls. The boys did not clean Sven's stall per his wishes and he didn't think they exactly minded. A reindeer was a strange sight this far south and they were nothing like horses, which a stable boy knew just as well as Kristoff knew ice.

Anna's fjord pony stuck her head out above its stall door as the sound of his boots scuffling in the straw. She nickered quietly at him, already used to the carrot stubs in his pockets. He reached out to pat her soft, pink nose, holding back a low chuckle when she sniffed and licked greedily at the peppermint still on his fingers. 

“Oh no, you don't.” He chuckled and moved around her craning neck, hand on Sven's stall door, when something rustled in the straw bedding and made a small little whimper. Kristoff frowned, eyeing the tip of Sven's antlers. That was decidedly not a Sven noise.

“What is it, buddy? Still sleeping-” He opened the door and stopped short at the scene before him. Sven looked up towards him with a somewhat bored expression, as if something like this happened every day, before turning to curve his head and antlers back around a little blanketed figure nestled into an expertly carved nest of straw built up around them. 

The blanket shifted suddenly. A velvet-clad arm erupted from the pink and ivory quilt up and over Sven's barrel back and frayed, strawberry hair parted to reveal a snoring Anna, small trickle of drool running down her chin. It was such a strange sight, he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. He briefly wondered if the stable boys knew that heir apparent was back here blissfully sleeping while they carted around buckets of manure. 

When he tried to look back over his shoulder to see if any of them were loitering around, taking in the peculiar view, Anna slurred sleepily and curled tightly into Sven's belly, cheeks rosy and warm and Kristoff found he couldn't move. An overwhelming feeling hit him out of nowhere, like a ship tumbling over to swallow him in the midst of a blizzard. He reached out to steady himself against the stall door as he uncharacteristically tottered on his feet. It was too early for princesses to be awake but it seemed he was only partially right. She had been awake, at some point, and had found her way down here.

The bubble burst when one of the boys cussed further down the aisle. The sharpness of his words brought him back to the surface of his bubbling emotions. Sven brayed gently as Kristoff came in and closed the door behind, propping the satchel up against it.

“Hey buddy, you got a guest?” He asked, voice low, as he crept a bit closer, hands finding what he thought (rather, hoped) might be Anna's shoulder. The reindeer twisted to nuzzle her nose, huffing when she burrowed deeper beneath the quilt and the floating haze that was her hair. Kristoff couldn't help but laugh as he watched Sven once more try to get to Anna's face, only to be thwarted as she continued to retreat.

“Mm..Sven, stop, just...minute...longer.” She grumbled. Sven looked up at Kristoff imploringly, but as tempted as he was, he couldn't be swayed.

“The faster we get up to the lakes, the faster we get home.” And with that, he maneuvered his arms around Anna's twisted form and lifted her up and out of the straw.

The stable boys did stop and stare when he left the stable carrying a bundle of blankets topped with a fluffy cloud of unplaited red hair, but Kristoff didn't spare them any attention. Focused on the path ahead, he bore Anna gently back up to her room, not encountering another soul the entire way. 

“Sven...” She muttered into his neck and he shivered slightly at the feeling of her warm breath on his bare skin.

“Close, but not quite.” He whispered as he began the long climb up the spiral staircase to her bedroom. The servants were still mulling about in their quarters. It did not appear that anyone else had awoken or started on their chores for the day. Kristoff was thankful.

“Bad dream. I had a bad dream.” Anna continued. He chanced a glance down at her face, mostly buried in her quilt and the collar of her robe, expecting to see her eyes closed. He could see the dusky fringe of her long lashes bat once, twice against her cheeks, and craned his head a little further when he saw her flick her gaze upwards towards him.

“Did Sven help?” He asked, playing along. 

“He listened. Told him all about it.” Without warning, Anna shifted, twisting her body so that she was facing him and threw her arms around his neck. Kristoff wobbled a bit on the step.

“Whoa, easy there-”

“Now I know why you liked to sleep next to him. Sven makes everything better.” Kristoff stopped short, readjusting his grip on her to hold her tighter to his body.

“Yes. Yes he does. C'mon. Let's get you back to bed.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be an angsty drabble, and then it got a mind of its own. Not totally as finished, but I've been in a rut and just needed to get something out there.


End file.
